Shadows Return
by DatJaden
Summary: Harry is called in to investigate a murder in a museum and gets involved in a situation that he can't handle. Ancient powers are put to use once more and an old hero may be called to action once more. And the best part is Harry's caught in the middle.


"Dresden? Hello, moon man. You in there?"

I blinked several times and glanced down at the small, blond, woman standing next to me. She had to stretch her arm to get it to the point where she was snapping her fingers right under my nose. I opened my mouth to say something about how short she was but the look in her blue eyes warned me not to go there. And for once I didn't.

"Sorry Murph, kinda spaced out there for a minute." I said, reaching up to scratch the back of my head with my gloved hand.

"Yeah, I noticed." She said dryly. "So what do you make of it?" she asked, in true Murphy fashion getting to the point quickly. I was silent for a moment, contemplating what to say. There were a lot of things I could say. Why not go with my usual?

"Well, it's a giant rock for starters." I said with a slight shrug of my shoulders. I didn't have to look at her to know she was glaring at me.

"Thanks Captain Smart ass, now tell me something about the body that's laying under the giant rock." she growled.

"Well for starters he's dead." I said, staring down at her with a straight face. Now that's some talent.

"I swear to god Dresden, if you do not get to the point within the next five seconds..." she growled, letting the threat hang in the air. She didn't have to tell me what she'd do. I'd seen her put enough people on their asses, human and supernatural alike, to know what she could do. I raised my hands in the universal symbol of surrender. I could be a smart ass later, I had work to do.

This was the only bad part of being the only practicing professional wizard in Chicago, I got called in every time something weird happened. Which was pretty much every other week. Chicago seems to be where all the supernatural nasties went when they wanted to cause trouble. So your friendly neighborhood wizard gets to pay hero and stomp them out. If only it wasn't so frequently. Over the past decade, probably more but I've been hit over the head so much I've lost count, I've had to deal with warlocks, FBI werewolves, Vampires, Necromancers, and all sorts of people that want to rip me into tiny little pieces.

Of course I'd never dealt anything as dark as what had killed the guard laying under said giant rock. His skin was unblemished and there was absolutely no sign that there was anything wrong with him. Other than being dead of course. I don't know what did it but I had a bad feeling that this man wasn't going to be the first. Once someone used magic as dark as this to kill they didn't just stop. They did it again and again. It was like a drug to them.

I shuddered a little and pulled my eyes away from the corpse. Instead I looked at the rock that he was laying under. It couldn't read most of what was written on it. It looked Egyptian to me, but then again I could be wrong. I couldn't help but admire the hair on the one figure. It looked rather sharp and dangerous. I glanced over at Murphy, well more like down seeing as she was so tiny, and raised a brow.

"What is this thing anyway?" I asked, motioning toward the rock. Murphy shrugged.

"I don't know, all I was told was that it's an artifact from Egypt. It's on a tour of the United States at the moment. There's supposed to be someone traveling with it." she said, her blue eyes flashing up toward mine. She knew me well enough by now to know which questions were important. "Does this have anything to do with the murder?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know yet, I need to find out more about it." I said, reaching up and running a hand through my hair. Murphy nodded and motioned for one of the cops standing nearby. He walked over and she began to give orders in rapid succession.

I recognized the cop as one of the guys from Special Investigations. And now that I actually looked around I realized that most of them were from SI. Which was probably why Murphy was running things. She used actually be in charge, until she got ran off in the middle of a crisis situation to help me rescue someone from the castle of the queen of Air and Darkness, Mab. She'd been demoted and Stallings had gotten the top job.

Special Investigations was the department that got most of the weird cases dumped on their laps. They had to come up with rational explanations for the supernatural. Murphy was the best at it, she'd been the first one to actually take things she saw seriously. She'd decided that she needed help: Thus she called me in as a consultant. We'd gotten into a lot of tough spots together and she'd always had my back and hadn't backed down from things she didn't really understand. She's good people, plain and simple. And it was my fault that she'd gotten demoted. I'd felt horrible for it, it was because I'd asked for her back up that she'd come with me. I shouldn't have done it but I did and it almost cost her everything. Not that I'd say that to her. She kick my ass. She may be a little under five feet but she could take me down in less than three seconds.

But it made sense why they'd still be following her orders, she knew what she was doing and they knew it. They were a loyal bunch...well expect for the one stray that had tried to get me thrown in jail and her fired, but we don't speak about him. You know the whole 'speak of the devil and he shall appear' thing, I don't wanna take chances with ugly showing up.

As I glanced around the room I noticed something. There was a man standing in the entrance to a hall that I could only guess led to a bunch of offices. That wasn't what I noticed about him though, it was his appearance. His hair was tri-colored and spiked to the point that it looked sharp and dangerous. My eyes drifted back toward the carving and then back to the man. If I didn't know any better I'd say that the man in the carving and the man standing in the hallway were the same person. But that would be too much of a coincidence? Right?

But knowing my luck they wouldn't be.

The mans violet eyes hadn't left the body laying under the carving, his eyes wide with something that could only be described as pure terror. I'd seen it enough, hell felt it enough, to identify it immediately. I watched as one of the cops walked over to him and began to speak rapidly to him. The other man tore his eyes away from the body to look at the other man and nodded. I saw the cop motion toward me and sighed.

The man nodded and began to make his way towards me. As he got closer I noticed that he was only a tiny bit taller than Murphy, though he was probably buffer. As he drew closer I saw him forcing his lips into a friendly smile and felt bad for the guy. He didn't seem like type of guy who saw stuff like this often.

"Are you Mr. Dresden?" he asked as he was within earshot, and I detected a bit of an Asian accent within his voice. I nodded and held out my hand.

"Hello, I'm Yugi Mouto. I'm the one that travels with the scripture" he said as he swung his hand forward to shake mine. As our hands touched a jolt of awareness went up my arm. He'd practiced magic before. The same kind of magic that had killed that man.

My eyes narrowed on him for a moment as my hand tightened around his. His eyes went wide once more as he glanced down at our hands then up at my face.

"Well Mr. Mouto, can you explain to me exactly why you reek of the magic that killed that man," I said, my voice deadly calm.

* * *

So.....what do you think? I have a feeling I'm going to get bitched out for this one.....

I know it's not a conventional crossover but I think if done properly it could be a good cross. I'll have the second chapter posted within the next few days.


End file.
